Tuesday, November 27, 2012

I’m not
entirely certain what to make of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009). It’s not a remake of the 1978 shoot
‘em up quickie (with ‘bastards’ correctly spelled in its title) by Enzo Castellari,
although Castellari does appear herein in a very brief cameo playing, of all
things, a Nazi. It’s certainly not anywhere close to being historically
accurate, but an exceptionally skewed Allied counterpoint to the propaganda
movies of Leni Riefenstahl. Its bloodthirsty, scalp-collecting Jewish mercenaries
fronted by a redneck general with Apache bloodlines; its Jewish female
protagonist who deliciously leers and howls from beyond the grave as an
audience of high ranking Nazi officials burn to death in her theater, and the
explosive (literally) revenge finale that has Adolf Hitler riddled in bullets
inside his box at the theater (very Abe Lincoln, if you ask me) do more than
hint at subliminal anti-Semitism, or at the very least, anti-American
sentiment: making the liberators as well as the victims of the holocaust appear
as maniacal, morally bankrupt and self-destructive as their Nazi counterparts.

Inglourious Basterds has all the ‘over’ and
‘undertones’ of a Sergio Leoni spaghetti western, its cavalcade of severely
flawed and very anti-heroic figures managing to do some good in spite of
themselves. Tarantino, a director primarily known for his tough as nails
approach to most any subject matter, shows unremarkable restraint herein. His
set pieces are raw and occasionally gruesome, but on the whole he seems more
captivated in telling us his revisionist theory of the war years: a frankly
unapologetic, and in ghastly poor taste bastardization to all those who lived
through, barely survived and/or defeated the tyranny of Europe with infinitely
more gracious dignity than the protagonists in this film. And yet despite its
insidious amalgam of faux history and abject nightmarish fantasy, Inglorious Basterds holds together as
semi-compelling – if wholly bizarre - fiction.

After Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino was
hailed as one of the burgeoning masters in American cinema; able to cleverly
exploit both the oddities and eccentricities of his own personality into an
artistic milieu that simultaneously manages to revile and delight his
audiences; marrying a very wicked, extremely dark sense of humor to the most perverted
moral ambiguities of our steadily declining contemporary society. But in Inglourious Basterdsthat probative
artistic license is rather inconsistently rendered with smite from an artist
clearly drunk on his own reputation as an aging ‘enfant terrible’. Tarantino’s
insertion of various title cards in a multitude of fonts is arbitrary at best
and seemingly without any deeper meaning.

As example:
it’s curious at best that our introduction to Sgt. Hugo Stigleitz (Til
Schweiger), a murderous thug filled with inconsolable rage, should include a
freeze frame with a massive stylized text of his name, followed by a brief back
story of how he acquired his fear-inducing reputation. After this rather lavish
overture Stigleitz barely speaks, is rarely seen on the screen, is given no
pivotal moment to distinguish himself, and finally, is unceremoniously – and
rather easily - killed in a ratskeller. Other characters receive no such
ballyhoo, begging the inquiry as to why Tarantino should choose to have us focus
on this one.

If a point is
being made then it is beyond the analytical skills of yours truly. But it’s
just the sort of contradictory diversion that Tarantino takes immense delight
in perpetrating on his audience. Do such ‘in jokes’ work? Not sure. Am I
supposed to get it? Again, not sure. Frankly, I’m tired of trying to figure
Tarantino and this film out especially when the director has illustrated such
glib gravitas toward his own work. When asked about his misspelled title
Tarantino said he would never explain it. In a later interview he referenced
its Basquiat quality and faithful phonetic adherence – “That’s just how you say it!” But that still doesn’t explain
anything and with due deference of Tarantino, he hasn’t attained that sort of
self-appointed autonomy in either his career or the social echelon yet to start
inventing his own language – cinematic or otherwise. Given Tarantino’s overt
and impenitent manipulation of history is it any wonder that Inglourious Basterds incurred mixed
reviews upon its premiere; the pundits and praise-worthy grossly divided over
its merit and overall cultural impact.

Le Monde
politely criticized Tarantino for “getting
lost” in his fiction; perhaps the kindest criticism the film received. Le
Tablet’s Liel Liebowitz was less circumspect, arguing the movie as an “alternative to reality…where we needn't
worry about the complexities of morality, where violence solves everything, and
where the Third Reich is always just a film reel and a lit match away from
cartoonish defeat.” By far The New Yorker’s David Denby was the most
pointedly terse, likening the experience to having a “great pot of warm piss emptied very slowly over your head” describing
the film in totem as “too silly to enjoy
– even as a joke” and citing Tarantino as “an embarrassment” and “idiot
de la cinémathèque.” I’ll throw my
own shovel of earth over this open grave by simply saying that Tarantino should
stick to fiction and leave history well enough alone.

At its best Tarantino’s
screenplay is a not altogether successful mishmash of stylistic and narrative
clichés, lacking his usual gutsy subterfuge to carry off the farce. Don’t misunderstand. Inglourious Basterds has some marvelous set pieces; two in which
Tarantino manages to elevate the nail-biting tension of suspense into a near
interminable frenzy for his audience. There’s good stuff here. But getting to
it is very much like picking at a scab with the anticipation of finding raw,
but healed, soft flesh underneath, only to discover a modicum of puss still
oozing from an open wound.

The film’s
prologue is set in 1941 with ‘Jew hunter’ Colonel Hans Landa (played to
sinister and wily perfection by Christoph Waltz) arriving at the pastoral
country cottage of dairy farmer Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet). Landa baits
LaPadite with cordial plaudits about his lovely daughters before stating the
reason for his impromptu visit; that the Reich suspects him of harboring a
neighboring family of Jewish farmers. To spare his own family total
annihilation Perrier confesses to Landa that the family he seeks is hiding
beneath the very floorboards on which they stand. Landa and his SS officers
riddle the cellar with bullets, killing all but the teenage Shosanna (Mélanie
Laurent) who flees on foot across the open plains and miraculously manages an
escape.

Fast track to
1944: American Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is recruiting Sgt. Donnie ‘the
bear Jew’ Donowitz (Eli Roth), Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki (Gedeon Burkhard), Pfc.
Smithson Utivich (B.J. Novak) and Pfc. Omar Ulmer (Omar Doom) for a perilous
mission behind enemy lines. These Jewish-American mercenaries have one
assignment: to insight fear and chaos in the Nazi high command by butchering
and then scalping as many Nazi soldiers as they can. Nicknamed ‘the basterds’
this motley crew begin a reign of terror by first breaking out Sgt. Hugo
Stigleitz (Til Schwieger) from a Nazi prison. Stigleitz is particularly
effective with a knife, relentlessly driving his blade into his victims until
they have literally been shredded to bits. Donowitz’s specialty involves
bludgeoning with a baseball bat. To say that these men make the dirty dozen
look like twelve altar boys just out from choir practice isn’t an
overstatement. The basterds’ are a repugnant and malicious band of cutthroats
with little if any socially redeeming values. Their repeated successful
ambushes infuriate Adolf Hitler (Martin Wuttke), particularly after German Pvt.
Butz (Sönke Möhring) accounts his own harrowing encounter to the Fuhrer in
person.

Moving to
Paris, we pick up Shosanna’s story, now masquerading as Emmanuelle Mimieux –
the proprietor of a small but fashionable cinema. A willowy looker with an
understandable natural distaste for German soldiers, Shosanna catches the eye
of German sniper Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl); a congenial enough fellow
whose heroic exploits have become the subject of Joseph Goebbels’ (Sylvester
Groth) latest propaganda film, ‘Nation’s Pride’. Zoller pursues Shosanna
romantically, but is repeatedly shot down for his efforts. The stalemate in
this pas deux leads into Tarantino’s first flash of brilliance in the film: the
unanticipated reunion between Shosanna and Landa. Escorted by a pair of storm
troopers to one of Paris’ more fashionable restaurants, Shosanna is mildly
relieved to discover that she has been brought there at Zoller’s behest. In
fact, Zoller has suggested to Goebbels (who is also having lunch there) that
the premiere of ‘Nation’s Pride’ be held at Shosanna’s theatre instead of the
more grand venue as earlier planned.

The luncheon
is interrupted by Landa who ingratiates himself into their conversation, then
joins Shosanna for dessert. Does Landa recognize Shosanna as the girl whose
back he only saw briefly as she fled in terror from LaPedite’s cottage three
years earlier? Or are his slippery insinuations merely that; designed to
exculpate his curiosities about this woman Zoller has suddenly taken a romantic
fancy? Returning to the relative safety of her theater afterward, Shosanna
conspires with her hired man and lover, Marcel (Jacky Ido) on a murderous plot of
her own. On the eve of ‘Nation’s Pride’ premiere she will lock all of the Nazis
inside, confront them with their atrocities and then burn down the theater.

Meanwhile in
England, film critic Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) is recruited
by Gen. Ed Fenech (Mike Myers) in the presence of Winston Churchill (Rod
Taylor) for ‘Operation Kino’. Hicox’s contact is German film star Bridget von
Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), a double agent who, along with the Basterds will
attend the premiere and plant explosives inside the theater. Regrettably, this
well laid plan goes hopelessly awry. For as Stieglitz and Hicox meet
Hammersmark inside a basement tavern to synchronize their plan of action, they
are confronted by Staff Sergeant Wilhelm (Alexander Fehling) who is in
mid-celebration over the birth of his baby son with a group of soldiers. Despite
Hicox ability to speak fluent German Sturmbannführer Dieter Hellstrom (August
Diehl) detects his ‘Anglicized’ accent. Hicox lies that he was born in a remote
village of mixed origin and Hellstrom plays along, engaging the trio in a game
of charades that ends when Hicox gives himself away by signaling for a round of
drinks using the wrong fingers.

In the ensuing
firefight everyone except Wilhelm and Hammersmark is killed, although she has
sustained a gunshot wound with the bullet still lodged in her shinbone. Raine
makes his presence known at the top of the stairs and attempts to negotiate a
détente, giving Hammersmark just enough time to seize a gun off of Stiglitz’s
body and shoot Wilhelm dead. Upon confiding her insider’s info that Hitler will
be attending the premiere, Raine makes the crucial decision to go ahead with
their plan. Fitting Hammersmark’s leg in a cast Raine, Donny and Omar pose as
Hammersmark’s Italian escorts and her cameraman at the premiere.

But Landa is
not fooled by Hammersmark, her mountain-climbing story of how she supposedly
broke her leg, or her non-verbal entourage. After quietly ushering Hammersmark
into one of the private offices upstairs, Landa confronts her with a shoe
recovered from the tavern and the handkerchief she autographed for Wilhelm in
the moments leading up to the gunfight. Unable to salvage a reply, Hammersmark
is violently strangled to death and Raines taken prisoner. But it seems Landa
has decided not to intervene in the Basterds plan to assassinate Hitler. In
exchange for his complicity in their plot he demands immunity from all previous
war crimes, American citizenship and a lifetime of financial security. Reluctantly,
Raine agrees.

Meanwhile, as
the screening of Nation’s Pride begins Zoller excuses himself from Goebbel’s
box to slip into the projection room where he envisions a seduction of
Shosanna. Instead the two fatally shoot one another to death. Prompted by a
projected image of Shosanna shot earlier by Marcel and spliced into ‘Nation’s
Pride’ – where she venomously extols the sublime irony of having a Jew murder
Germans - Marcel, who has been waiting behind the screen with a pile of highly
flammable nitrate, ignites the film stock with his lit cigarette. The theater
goes up in flames and Omar and Donowitz, with TNT strapped to their ankles and
rifles in hand, assassinate Hitler, Goebbels and their guards inside their
private box before riddling the auditorium with bullets. Their bombs go off and
the theater is destroyed in a thought-numbing explosion.

Not long after
Landa and his radio operator drive Raine and Utivich across American lines. In
accordance with their prearranged plan, Landa and the operator willingly
surrender. But to Landa's surprise Raine reneges on their deal, shooting the
radio operator in the head. He tells Landa that even though he has agreed to
his freedom, he – Landa – will never truly be free of his past. Raine then uses
his knife to carve a permanent swastika into Landa's forehead – a concrete reminder
that he was, is and will forever remain a Nazi.

Inglourious Basterds ends on such an abysmal note of
moral ambiguity that it is impossible to simply relish the irony in this final
exercise of mutilation. Tarantino’s script is all over the place. The more
striking vignettes – the unexpected reunion of Shosanna and Landa in the
restaurant and the tavern firestorm where Stiglitz and Hicox are blown to bits are
bookended by some of Tarantino’s worst attempts to tie these many narrative
threads into one cohesive whole. The film is far more an ensemble piece than a
star vehicle for Brad Pitt. In fact, Pitt’s mercenary yahoo from the Ozarks is
one of the least engrossing characters in the film; his attempt at a redneck
southerner never quite what it ought to be. He chips his dialogue with an
affected accent rather than a naturalized drawl.

Rod Taylor
gives us an intelligent Churchill, but Martin Wuttke’s Hitler is a daft boob
with a bad comb-over and an officer’s costume rented from central casting;
slamming his fist repeatedly against desks and walls, but cowering like a
frightened one eyed rooster when he finds himself trapped in Shosanna’s burning
theater. Which brings me to Mélanie Laurent’s aloof and cackling harridan; not
believable as a fascinating caricature of the asexual harpy to be contemplated
and then cast aside. The rest of the cast ranges from middling competency to downright
sloppy embarrassments; Sylvester Groth, Mike Myers, Jacky Ido and Daniel Bruhl
being the most painfully obvious and ineffectual of the lot.

This leaves
the heavy lifting to Christoph Waltz and Diane Kruger – both batting one out of
the park with their edge-of-your-seat taut and tenacious performances that are
the most engrossing in the film. Kudos also to Michael Fassbender’s dashing spy,
August Diehl’s diabolically malicious Nazi officer, and, Denis Menochet’s
demoralized dairy farmer; brilliant cameos augmenting an otherwise inferior script.
Honorable mention also to Til Schwieger’s near mute portrait of the vengeful assassin.

Inglourious Basterds isn’t the masterpiece that
Tarantino hoped for and perhaps that is a shame, although in hindsight it is
also of his own doing. Personally, I cannot fathom the ‘loony-tune’ mindset
that would turn the factual record of history on end, claim it as artistic
license, and take itself seriously – even as lowbrow entertainment. With its
inexplicable slurs perpetuated on the Jewish people (basically carpet-hauling
them as the aggressors of WWII while playing the Nazis as outlandish lampoons
of staggering stupidity) how could Tarantino not have expected the insult to
sting. With all due respect to Tarantino – I
get it – due diligence and reverence to the war was never his or the film’s
intent. ButInglourious Basterdsis
too far gone down the rabbit hole to be considered mere glib farce or even a
parody in bad taste. At some level both Tarantino and the film must be taken
seriously and at face value, and that makes Inglourious Basterds a very sour and extremely perverse little
nothing indeed - completely undeserving of our renewed admiration for its
otherwise relatively ambitious construction. In years yet to come,Inglourious Basterdsmay indeed achieve cult status as a sort of
delusional revision of the past. More than likely it will be relegated to the ‘anus’
rather than the annals of cinema history.

Universal and
Alliance Home Video have collaborated on the release of this Blu-ray with
admirable results. The image is bright and razor sharp without appearing digitally
manipulated with undue DNR. Colors are bold, rich and fully saturated. Flesh
tones look very natural. Fine detail is superb. Lots to admire. Ditto for the
DTS 5.1 audio; really kicking into high gear during action sequences but also
capturing the subtleness in hushed dialogue. Extras are a hodgepodge at best:
deleted/extended scenes represented without any context, talking points
expressed by Tarantino and Brad Pitt that begin and end abruptly, a making of
snippet on ‘Nation’s Pride’ though curiously no such counterpart for Inglourious Basterds, the full version
of ‘Nation’s Pride’; literally a sound byte from Rod Taylor (billed as ‘a
conversation’) and some other press junkets haphazardly thrown together.
Personally, I’m not surprised. More to the point – I’m not impressed. Bottom
line: not recommended.

About Me

Nick Zegarac is a freelance writer/editor and graphics artist. He holds a Masters in Communications and an Honors B.A in Creative Lit from the University of Windsor.
He is currently a freelance writer and has been a contributing editor for Black Moss Press and is a featured contributor to online's The Subtle Tea. He's also has had two screenplays under consideration in Hollywood.
Last year he finished his first novel and is currently searching for an agent to represent him.
Contact Nick via email at movieman@sympatico.ca